Legal hurdles for Aranmula airport

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Several legal issues pertaining to land and environment will hinder the commencement of work for Aranmula airport project, for which the ministry of environment and forests accorded clearance the other day.

As many as seven cases are pending in various courts against the proposed Rs 2,000-crore private airport project. These include two cases in Kottayam vigilance court, alleging that the promoters had flouted land act and environmental norms of the state. There are five cases pending in the high court, including a case filed by poet Sugathakumari to denotify the area notified as industrial zone and two writ petitions for violating land ceiling act and water conservation act.

A revision petition filed to begin construction of airport in excess land was stayed by the court on October 13 . Also, there is a petition filed by Akiraman H Sharma stating that the airport is coming up in violation of the traditions of Aranmula temple. There are two cases pending at Kottayam vigilance court against eight government officials for violation of land rules.

The ministry of environment and forests had also not considered the report submitted by the state legislature committee on environment on the project. "We had found environmental violations like reclamation of water bodies, owing to which the paddy cultivation had to be stopped,'' Congress MLA C P Mohammed who led the committee said.

He said the committee, which included members from all political parties, found at least 11 violations like destruction of paddy fields, denuded hills, reclamation of Kozhithodul, a tributary of the Pampa river, and keeping the process of denotifying excess land in abeyance.

"I am surprised that the MoEF, ignoring all our findings, gave approval to the project. We had also asked the state to take action against those responsible for these violations. Till date, except for denotifying excess land, the government has not bothered to probe the other violations," he said.

Muhammed said the committee report did not say that it was against the project per se but wanted the government to rectify these aspects. "But it remains a fact that when we visited Aranmula, around 3,000 people gave us representations against the project and this shows that the promoters of the project could not take the local community into confidence before planning such a big project,'' he said.